FORT WAYNE, Ind. – With just five months left before one of the most troubled federal IT projects in history goes live at the Northern Indiana VA, Deputy Secretary Paul R. Lawrence landed in Fort Wayne on Thursday for a hands-on damage assessment.
The stakes could not be higher. When the new Oracle Health Electronic Health Record system launches in August 2026, it will become the lifeline for more than 62,000 Hoosier veterans who receive care across the Fort Wayne campus and surrounding clinics.
Why Fort Wayne Matters in the National Rollout
The Northern Indiana VA is one of only six sites still scheduled to receive the new EHR in 2026 after the Department slammed the brakes on the $16 billion program in 2023 and 2024 because of repeated patient-safety failures at earlier sites.
Lawrence spent the entire day inside the VA Fort Wayne campus, meeting with hospital director Brian Beckner, clinical staff, and frontline workers who will live with this system every shift.
Staff told him bluntly: the problems that crippled Mann-Grandstaff in Spokane, Columbus, and Walla Walla still exist in the current software build.
Multiple nurses and physicians shared that medication reconciliation screens remain confusing, downtime procedures are unclear, and the system still drops consult orders without warning, according to three people in the closed-door sessions.
Patient Safety Remains the Breaking Point
Lawrence repeatedly stressed that patient harm is non-negotiable.
“If we are not absolutely confident this will be safe on day one, we will not flip the switch,” he told staff, according to attendees.
That promise carries extra weight in Indiana. Veterans here still remember the 2020 pharmacy error at the Marion VA campus that affected hundreds of prescriptions before the old rollout was paused.
The Deputy Secretary toured the Fort Wayne emergency department and primary care clinics, watching live demonstrations of how providers will have to navigate dual systems for months after go-live because community care records will not fully migrate on day one.
What Veterans Can Expect in August 2026
When the system finally launches:
- Every VA appointment, prescription, lab result, and imaging study from across the country will appear in one record
- Community care providers will be able to view VA records in real time (a feature veterans have demanded for years)
- My HealtheVet will get a complete overhaul with a modern, mobile-friendly design
- Pharmacy wait times should drop dramatically once barcode medication administration goes live
But none of that happens without pain.
Staff confirmed they are already scheduling extra training shifts in June and July. The VA will bring in hundreds of super-users and Oracle Health trainers to work alongside local employees 24/7 during the first month after launch.
The National Reset That Made This Visit Possible
After five veterans died in incidents linked to EHR glitches at earlier sites and the program fell years behind schedule, VA Secretary Denis McDonough ordered a full reset in 2024.
Oracle Health was forced to fix more than 400 high-severity defects. The company has now delivered six straight software releases with zero Category 1 safety issues, according to the latest VA oversight report released last week.
Fort Wayne benefits directly from that hard reset. The version of the system coming here is dramatically improved over what launched in Spokane in 2020 or even Columbus in 2023.
Veterans in the room Thursday told Lawrence they feel heard for the first time in years. One Vietnam-era Marine who receives cancer care at the Fort Wayne VA shook the Deputy Secretary’s hand and said simply, “Just don’t let what happened to my buddies out west happen here.”
Lawrence promised him it would not.
As he boarded his flight back to Washington, the message was clear: Fort Wayne is now ground zero for proving the VA can finally get this right.
For the thousands of veterans across northeast Indiana who have waited years for a modern, working health record, August 2026 cannot come soon enough, yet everyone agrees it must not come a single day too early.
What do you think, Hoosier veterans and families: are you feeling hopeful or still worried about this launch? Drop your thoughts below, and if you’re talking about it on social, use #VAFortWayneEHR so we can keep the conversation going.
